


We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things

by sophinisba



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: 5000-10000 Words, Community: kinkme_merlin, Established Relationship, Future Fic, Gender or Sex Swap, Marriage, Multi, One of My Favorites, Queer Themes, Remixed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-14
Updated: 2010-02-14
Packaged: 2017-10-07 06:16:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/62256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the kinkme_merlin prompt "Arthur/Gwen, Arthur/Gwen/Merlin, Arthur and Gwen get married but despite Arthur's best efforts Gwen doesn't seem to be enjoying sex. It turns out that although she loves Arthur she's sexually attracted to women and so doesn't get that turned on by sex with a man. Wanting to satisfy her, Arthur asks Merlin to come up with a spell or potion that can turn him into a female so they can use it whenever they have sex."</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things

Gwen was spread out beneath him, her body open, curls clinging to the warm, sweaty skin of her neck. Arthur bent to kiss her and she turned her head to the side, giving him room.

It was good to be king, Arthur thought. Not only did he get to tell everybody what to do, not only was he no longer forced to follow anyone else's orders (especially with regard to hunting down and murdering people like his dearest friend)...But he had the woman he loved for a bride. He'd been able to choose. And she'd said yes, not just because he was king, but because he was the kind of king, the kind of man she'd always wanted him to be.

Arthur thrust in between Gwen's thighs, into her heat, the depth and the joy of her. He moaned as she moved with him, bringing her hand to where they were joined and stroking them both. She wasn't making a sound, but it was good, so good, and Arthur was the luckiest man in the world to have her.

He fairly collapsed on top of her when he came. She held him around his upper arms and her touch reminded him not to lie there, not to crush her. He pushed up and rolled to the side, so he could look in her face again. Gwen was biting her lip, an adorable gesture she'd never lost, even now that she was queen and had no reason to hold her tongue. Arthur kissed her nose, then her mouth. He noticed her hand was moving again, slowly caressing herself.

"You didn't –" he said, startled.

"It's all right," said Gwen, and she pulled her hand away from between her legs, touched Arthur's cheeks. "It was good."

"But you didn't come."

"I...I don't always come. It doesn't mean I didn't like it."

Ten seconds ago Arthur had been prepared to fall asleep in his wife's arms with a smile on his face and dream of uniting all of Albion with her at his side. But this could not be left alone. This was unacceptable.

"All right," he said slowly. "You liked it but...you need more time, is that it?" It was his fault, maybe. He'd come too fast, like a boy of sixteen, and Arthur was not only a grown man but a king. He was meant to stay strong, to make it last... "I'm sorry."

"Whatever for? _Arthur_..."

It hadn't been that short, had it? Arthur thought of the other women he'd made love to over the years. Sure, he'd been rubbish at first, but he'd learned a thing or two by now.

"Right," said Arthur, because the glow was completely gone now, he couldn't think of leaving it off like this. He took her hand and moved it back down, pushing both their fingers quickly and then letting her move as she would. He kissed her mouth, not wanting to let her look away from him this time. He let her guide his fingers and they moved slowly – not so different from what he'd been doing, he thought, but this wasn't the time to get worked up about any of that.

"I love you," Arthur said, voice low, rough and sincere.

"I...you too, I..." And Gwen was caught up in the moment, obviously, but he couldn't help thinking it sounded a bit strained, like a protest, or a plea. As if he would doubt it, or as if _she_ had.

Gwen closed her eyes and opened her mouth, and Arthur watched her. He listened as she started to whimper, as she started moving her hips as well as her hands. It was gorgeous, and the feeling of her wet trembling flesh under his fingers – well, it wasn't anything like being inside her for real, but it was still special, just good in a different way. Gwen finished with a soft cry and Arthur held her for a long time. He moved his hands lazily, possessively over her breasts and she smiled at him. Her face and her voice were soft when she said, "Thank you."

"My pleasure."

Except that it hadn't been. That is, his pleasure hadn't been hers. Not having pleased her from the first was his distinct _dis_pleasure. And if the other had been...adequate for her needs, that didn't put his mind or his manhood at ease, so to speak.

When Arthur slept he dreamed he was trying to wage a battle in a desert. The enemy host was endless and there was no one at his side.

*

The next night he made a point of taking his time with Gwen. He kissed her all over, kissed the back of her knee and the corner of her eye, the space between her fingers. He kissed up her thighs and tongued her, tasted her, felt her swelling under him, and he sucked gently until he was sure she was close.

"Ready?" he murmured, letting his lips move against her flesh some more as he spoke.

"What?" said Gwen. "Ready, yes. Give, I –"

Then Arthur kissed up her belly and her breasts, and when he entered her she was wet and open like never before, and it was perfect. He was _almost sure_ it was perfect.

"Is this –"

"Yes, Arthur."

"You're ready to – "

"Yes."

"I'm going to –"

"_Yes_."

Arthur fell asleep not long after that because, well. But he woke up later that night at Gwen's movement beside him, and after some moments of confusion he realised she was pleasuring herself again. Which...all right, everyone knew girls could have it more than once – in fact, he was used to them having it more than once _with him_. But really, by herself, and with him lying there right next to her? Arthur reached for her and she gave a shout of surprise ("_Arthur_!"), withdrawing her hand and then going still.

"What's wrong?" he said, and he sleepily kissed her collarbone.

Gwen's strangled cry of "Nothing!" was what really woke him up.

"Gwen, you're..."

"Go back to sleep, Arthur, please."

"But if you're...Didn't you, before?"

She said nothing.

"After all that, you were pretending?"

"I thought you'd enjoy it more if you thought I was too." She cleared her throat, and added softly, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"Don't be _sorry_." He sat up in bed and lit a candle. "Tell me what this is, and why you don't want my help with it."

"I don't…I've never really…" She took a breath and came out with, "It's not something men have ever helped me with."

Arthur thought about that for a moment. "All right, but you've never been married to the love of your life before."

"I know," Gwen said miserably, and Arthur thought that was a somewhat inappropriate thing to be miserable about.

"You've had other lovers," Arthur said carefully, keeping his voice free of any jealousy or anger (which he had every right to feel, but it wouldn't be helpful, he'd decided).

Gwen nodded. "Not a lot."

"You've had…women as well as men?"

"Only once with a man. It just, um, didn't work out."

"So you're…" Rather late in the game for her to be revealing something this important, wasn't it? "I never thought of you as… I mean, sometimes one suspects, from the way people act, or the way they look at you. Merlin, obviously. And to be honest I always had my suspicions about Morgana, although –" He was cut off by a short whimper from Gwen. "_Morgana?_ You mean, _you_ and Morgana?"

"Yes. There were others, but she was the one who really made me realise that was what I wanted." Gwen sighed and added, "She was awfully good."

"_I'm_ awfully good!"

"Oh, of course you are! You're lovely! So was the other man I tried it with! I like you a lot, Arthur. I love you, of course, you know that, but I also _like_ you. And when it comes to…" she waved her hand toward her nether regions, though she'd covered up under a blanket. "When it comes to this I can tell you're trying, and it helps, honestly it does. Tonight was really very nice, especially when you were...and I think if I ever wanted the last part you'd be wonderful, but I'm not…I just don't think I'm _made_ that way."

*

They were both silent for a while after that, as Arthur searched for something to say that wouldn't upset her, since she clearly wasn't any happier about the general situation than he was. He'd like to wrap his arms around her and tell her everything was all right, but he couldn't, because it wasn't. She had agreed to marry him after all. That wasn't something girls who didn't like men ought to do. On the other hand, he wouldn't have been very happy if she'd said no.

"It's not fair to you," Gwen said softly, and that sounded about right to him, but he said,

"It's not fair to either of us, but we'll figure something out."

He didn't try to touch her again, apart from a shy, chaste kiss on her lips. Her brow was creased, her face pained, and rather than stare at her any more he put out the candle. They lay there pretending to sleep.

*

"Merlin," said Arthur. He was trying for imperious, which he was usually pretty good at, though his tone might have been a little off today. A little more needy than it ought to be. Lack of sleep and all that.

"Yes, sire?"

"Do you know of any potions for…"

"Yes?"

He _had_ thought about how he would put this before striding into Merlin's chambers. It was just that the speeches he had prepared didn't seem to make much sense anymore.

"To help a person's appetites. Or their…moods, or."

Merlin was looking at him with an open but doubtful expression. Clearly ready to try and help if only Arthur would speak plain English.

"For sex," said Arthur. "Do you have a potion, or a spell, anything like that, to help someone enjoy sex."

Arthur was afraid Merlin would start grinning or teasing, assume the problem was that Arthur couldn't get it up or make him confess the shame of not being able to satisfy Gwen, but he smiled sympathetically then and shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he said, "but she already asked me."

"She _what_? When?"

"Back before the wedding, actually."

"She knew this – You both knew this was a problem _before_ she married me?"

Merlin nodded. "She figured it would be, yeah. And then, er, just after, she came to me again, because it was."

"So she's been…_tolerating_ me all this time?" Arthur said, feeling lecherous and low, like the lords who took their pleasure with chambermaids, taking for granted that the girls weren't in any position to complain.

He usually counted on Gwen to let him know about things like that, to report when a servant was being taken advantage of so he could intervene. Arthur would make it clear that such behaviour was not tolerated in his castle or his kingdom.

They were good together, he and Gwen. Had been ever since he started paying more attention to her, listening to her advice. And it was clearer to him all the time, how much more the common people trusted him, knowing he'd chosen to marry one of them, that there was this understanding between them.

Except that apparently there wasn't, as she'd been lying to him and confiding her misery to Merlin all along. "She's been suffering through it?"

"Not suffering, no," said Merlin, "she just…" He shrugged. "It's not her favourite thing, is all. I can sympathise, you know? But it's not something I know how to fix."

"Well why the hell not? You're her friend, and if anyone can come up with a love potion, or whatever kind of –"

But Merlin was shaking his head. "Love potions and spells are dangerous, Arthur, I should think you'd be as aware of that as anyone." After the truth came out Merlin had explained everything he'd done for Arthur in all the time since he'd first come to Camelot. Including Sophia. And Katrina. And Vivian.

Quietly, Merlin added, "If I were the kind of sorcerer to make love potions, don't you think I would have made you drink one a long time ago?" He smiled and looked up at Arthur through long lashes, and Arthur smiled back fondly, because Merlin's feelings hadn't been a secret since before his magic was. But after a moment Arthur looked away and shifted, because the subject had never quite become comfortable either.

"You wouldn't –"

"Exactly. I wouldn't try to control someone else's mind, even if I knew how."

"But if she _asked_ you to, and I asked…"

"It would still be wrong, and it would still be…I don't know, some other kind of magic, not what I have."

"You can do anything," said Arthur, and Merlin laughed.

"No. I can make things move, I can change their shape or what they look like. If people are sick I can sometimes heal them..."

"But Gwen isn't sick," Arthur finished slowly.

"Any more than you are. That's what she likes, and it's who she is. You wouldn't want to change that, even if you could."

Arthur wasn't quite sure he agreed with this, but it didn't seem like the kind of thing he could argue, not without giving up a lot of his own idea of what _he_ was, and of what Gwen said she loved about him.

"So…" he said, exhaling a long, slow breath. "We just need to…work with what we've got."

"You've got two people who love each other. That's more than most start out with, especially in…" Merlin gestured vaguely – "your line of work."

Arthur raised an eyebrow but didn't respond to that. "I've got the most powerful sorcerer in all of Albion on my side, or so I'm told. That ought to be good for something."

Merlin chuckled and ducked his head, but he didn't argue. "She didn't tell you she'd talked to me?"

"No."

"Then perhaps you need to have another talk with her, before you try to solve all your problems with magic."

"That's what we've done up till now, isn't it?"

Merlin grinned. "Only when things got desperate," he said. "You're not there yet."

"I am."

"I hid my magic under your father's nose for three years, Arthur. Don't tell me you know what desperate is. Talk to Gwen."

*

"He told you that I told him that?" said Gwen, frowning.

"Yes, well, you're not married to him. If anyone should be complaining about secrets –"

"I hope you don't think you're going to make me forget that you're a man by getting jealous and territorial."

"I'm not trying to make you forget I'm a man!"

Gwen stared at him for a moment, saying nothing.

"What?" said Arthur.

"It's – that's what I do, when we're."

"When we're what?"

"When we're having sex, Arthur, I do my best to forget you're a man."

Arthur resisted the urge to bury his head in his hands and groan. He concentrated on looking her in the eye – that got more difficult as she started looking off to the side, but she pressed on: "And sometimes it works, sometimes there's whole minutes when you're just focused on me, and every once in a while I can forget long enough that I can get off. If you would…if you would wait, more. It's not that I can't stand having you inside me and it's not that I couldn't…for you, with my hands? But if you'd let me have my own first, I think that might help."

"I can do that," said Arthur. Gwen frowned a little and he amended, "I _want_ to do that. I – God, Gwen, do you think it's a chore for me to go down on you?" He smiled because the idea was so absurd, but once he'd spoken it occurred to him that maybe that's what it was for her, and again he wondered if he'd been acting like the kind of man he hated. "Look, I like all the things we do together. And if you don't, or if you need more time, whatever it is, I wish you…" wouldn't _lie_ to me about it – "It would help me if you said. In the moment, too, not just when we're having a discussion like this."

"Of course," said Gwen. "It never really felt like the right moment to tell you, before, but now…yes." She smiled and added, "It was always sort of embarrassing anyway, pretending."

Arthur didn't smile back.

*

They gave it a try. Quite a few tries, actually, in between battles and monsters and attacks by rogue sorcerers. Quite a lot of time and quite a few different positions (several of which, to Arthur's intense embarrassment, had been suggested by Merlin). They'd read all kinds of interesting stories aloud, looked at pictures and talked about ex-lovers and imagined ones. Gwen got better at finishing her sentences and Arthur got better at sensing the meaning in between her words.

Sometimes it worked, but more often either Gwen would tell him she wasn't feeling it or she'd tell him it was good, but Arthur suspected she didn't mean it. Needless to say, neither of these situations was good for Arthur's performance or his enjoyment of the proceedings. When he did manage to bring her off, she almost always had her eyes closed, and Arthur couldn't stop himself thinking, _it's because she has to make it different. It's because she's pretending I'm someone else_.

"Maybe there's no solution," he said one night, after they'd given up on sex and Gwen was trying to convince him she was happy just to lie in his arms. "Maybe it's just not going to work out. Hell, maybe you should have just run off with Morgana and Morgause to the island of magical lesbians –"

"Arthur!" Gwen shouted, her voice was full of hurt. He knew he'd gone too far, but she had to know this was hard for him. She understood that, didn't she?

Gwen sat up in bed and wrapped up in a shawl. Obviously she wasn't going to be happy lying in his arms now.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That was unfair. And I know you still miss her."

"I know you do too," said Gwen. "Er, in a different kind of way. That's the thing, all right? You loved Morgana but you wouldn't have thought about going to bed with her because you were raised like brother and sister. Just like you wouldn't think of going to bed with Merlin –"

Arthur had given that some thought, actually, and they'd even talked it over a few times, but mostly just as a joke –

"Because he's a man."

Arthur nodded. "And I hate that. I hate thinking that what we're doing is as awful for you as it would be for me to go to bed with Merlin."

"I don't know that you'd think that was so awful if you'd ever actually tried it."

"Wait, are you saying that you've –"

"The point is," Gwen said quickly, "Morgana was really good in bed. Wait, no, that's not the point at all. The point is, _even though_ Morgana was really good in bed, I always knew my future was with you. And I think she did too. Even when we were keeping it secret, when I didn't think you could love me back, or even if you did, you wouldn't be able to go through with marrying me. This is…I've loved you for a very long time, Arthur."

She kissed him, soft and slow, and Arthur decided not to argue with that, not to try to make it lead to something more. He'd take the kiss for what it was, for now, for the truth.

Except, he thought as she finally pulled away, it would be even _more_ true, "If only I were a woman."

Gwen looked at him thoughtfully.

*

"I don't think that's a good idea," said Merlin.

Arthur agreed with him almost completely, and yet. "It would only be temporary."

"I think he'd look really nice," Gwen added.

"Well, he's not going to be ugly, obviously," Merlin agreed.

"It _would_ only be temporary, right? I mean, you'd make a potion and I'd drink it, and an hour or two later, or at any rate by morning it'd wear off. There wouldn't be any danger of…permanent…"

"I'd need some time to develop something like that. Um, test it out on some animals…maybe on me, although…" His mouth twisted in a way Arthur found somewhat offensive. After all, if turning into a girl for the sake of someone he loved was good enough for the king, it ought to be good enough for Merlin.

"I don't see what the big deal is, really," said Arthur – trying to convince himself as much as he was Merlin, if he were honest about it. "It's none of that mind-altering stuff you refused to do. It's just physical. I'd look more like…the kind of person Gwen's attracted to, but I'd still be me, right? I'd be thinking the same and acting the same. Come to think of it, I've been making love like a lesbian for months now."

Gwen huffed a little at that. "Well, except for the part where you still have a penis that's always rubbing up against –"

"Right, but not actually sticking it –"

"All right, all right!" Merlin shouted, putting up his hands. "I don't actually need to know those kinds of details in order to make the potion!"

"Sorry," said Gwen.

"Listen, you're the one who insisted we start discussing these things openly."

"With each other, right! Because you're the ones who decided to get married!"

"Well, you're the one who said it was a good idea, even though you knew she was dreading having sex with me."

"I wasn't _dreading_ it, Arthur. Honestly, you're the one who's made such a fuss over this."

"Over not being repulsive when I make love to my wife?"

"Always having to say it in the most dramatic way possible," Gwen grumbled. "Merlin, you're right, we shouldn't be having this out in front of you. But – do you think it's something you can do? It's like Arthur said, just a physical transformation. I've seen you turn seeds into plants and flowers into fruits before, so I thought, if you could give it a try…"

Gwen was good at that, at being forceful when she needed to be (mostly when speaking to Arthur) and sweet when she had to convince someone like Merlin. Arthur could practically see him melting in the face of her smile, and he couldn't help being charmed himself.

"Yeah," said Merlin with a sigh, "this is…I'll work on it."

"Thank you, Merlin." Gwen kissed his forehead. "You always come through for us."

"I know," said Merlin. "Yeah, I do."

Arthur glared at him. Merlin smiled and turned away.

*

"And you're sure it's just temporary."

"Yes, for the hundredth time, it's been tested and retested on everything from rabbits to court sorcerers. Besides which, Lancelot assures me it's just like making love to a woman when it's working, and everything's back to normal after a few hours."

"Oh," said Gwen, who hadn't heard this explained in that much detail before.

"How long, exactly?"

"Arthur," Merlin put a hand on his shoulder, "just drink the potion, will you?"

Right. Merlin was his most trusted friend, who'd saved his life more times than either of them could count (thought possibly that had to do with the fact that the only times they'd tried to count were when they were shouting at each other and/or drunk) and been loyal through what Arthur now understood to have been an awful lot of ill treatment before his father's death, and despite the fact that Arthur always refused to have sex with him. Merlin was doing this because they'd asked him to, not because he had a secret agenda to turn Arthur into a woman for the rest of his life. He drank the potion.

He wasn't expecting it to hurt, and it didn't, exactly. If anything he'd expected it to feel like having his prick shrivel up into nothing. What happened instead was that everything he was used to feeling in the length of him, what he was used to holding in his hand, what he was used to thrusting into Gwen's body (although not so much recently, sad to say), everything he was used to feeling and wanting and needing there was just as strong as ever, but it was concentrating itself, seizing up into something the size of fingertip and at the same time somehow spreading out across his skin and through his blood. He brought his hand to his groin and couldn't believe there was no bulge there. The sensation was still so big. But his hand kept closing in and his fingers – he couldn't get them inside through the fabric, but there it was, a space where his fingers curled in, and right away he knew he wanted to push them in deeper, to see how far he could go, to find out what it felt like.

"You should probably get your trousers of before you try that," Merlin said helpfully. At Arthur's look his cheeky smile froze. "And I should probably get out before you try that," he added.

"No," Arthur said without thinking, and then wondered where the hell that had come from.

Of course Merlin should get out. It wasn't his place to be standing around making smart-arse comments while Gwen helped Arthur figure out how to do this. But then again, what if something went wrong with the magic and Arthur's ears and his limbs started tucking up into little holes as well? (And he couldn't very well hope to satisfy Gwen if he lost his tongue and his fingers now, could he?) Besides that, what if he turned out to be _really bad at this_ after all, and Gwen was too kind to tell him to shape up? He wasn't sure why he was trusting Merlin to be any kind of help with that, except that –

"Yes, stay here, Merlin," said Gwen. Then she had her hand over Arthur's, but to his surprise she was prying his fingers away from his fascinating new genitalia, which he'd thought she'd be as eager to explore as he was. "Leave that alone for a bit," she whispered in his ear.

"But it's –"

"I want to take the time to enjoy this, and I want you to…appreciate just how good this is. And Merlin, you ought to get to see the results of your work."

"Oh, but like I said, I already –"

"But on _Arthur_," she said, touching Arthur's jaw and looking into his eyes.

It was funny to think that Arthur was the one who'd taken the potion. He was feeling the physical effects, certainly, but thinking back on the times he'd seen it before, and in particular the way Vivian had looked at him when they'd taken her away, that was the way Gwen was looking at him now. As if she were enchanted – even though, despite Merlin's advice, he still hadn't got his trousers off.

"Is my face different as well?" he asked, bringing his fingers up to hers, and oh, his voice was higher. Probably should have expected that too.

"Of course it is," said Merlin. "You didn't think I'd do this halfway, did you?"

"You didn't make my breasts very big."

"They're perfect," said Gwen, whose breasts were pressing against Arthur's in a way that made him inclined to agree. "It's all perfect." She traced lightly over the lines of his face with her fingers and then started pressing kisses to the same places. "He's so beautiful. Oh, Merlin, if only I could've had this sooner."

"Well, I wasn't as good at these things back then. Might have turned one of us into an ape or something."

Gwen laughed and her breath was warm against Arthur's neck, and for all the times she'd insisted in the last few months that she was satisfied, that it was _fine_, that he was good enough, he couldn't remember her sounding quite this content.

*

Arthur thought about asking what Merlin meant by _one of us_ or why it was so important to Gwen that he stay, but instead he decided to relax and enjoy kissing Gwen, who couldn't get enough of him, it seemed. She'd been walking him backward, and when he felt Merlin standing behind him that felt all right, warm and solid, especially when Merlin was leaning back against the wall and had his arms around Arthur's waist. Arthur tilted his head back and both of them were kissing him, and it wasn't something he'd ever imagined he would want before, but right now he couldn't imagine anything that would feel better.

"Are you sure, Gwen?" Merlin asked.

She hummed a yes. "As long as it's all right with Arthur."

Arthur nodded, surprised again at how easy it was to decide. "It's…I think you'd be here, whether you stayed in the room or not."

"The magic, yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Lancelot won't mind?" Gwen asked absently.

Merlin chuckled. "No, Lancelot won't mind. Can you imagine him being angry at either of you?"

She paused. "But he –"

"No, we've talked about it, it's okay."

Merlin undid Arthur's belt buckle. Strange, Merlin, who used to do that every day, though he never used to kiss him while he was doing it. Meanwhile Gwen was slowly, clumsily unbuttoning his shirt. She'd had a lot of practice with that too, but then she was still awfully preoccupied with his mouth right now. Arthur helped Merlin shove his trousers down and then Merlin had a hand around Arthur's thigh. Arthur shifted his hips, moving into his touch. Gwen was still holding him from the other side and Arthur felt like taking hold of everything and felt like letting go.

"This is – I need –"

"Shhh." Gwen turned her head so Arthur could kiss just under her ear, and he found he didn't need to talk anymore. "It's different, you see?"

Arthur moaned softly. It was different. Merlin's hand was squeezing Arthur's thigh and it didn't bother him that it was a few inches below his crotch. It felt just right, just like that, with Merlin holding him. Then he noticed that Gwen was kissing the scar on his shoulder and cutting across his chest, a few inches above his breasts. The scar had been there for years, since long before they were married, and she'd kissed it a thousand times. The breasts, obviously, were new. They were newly full and aching a little under her hands.

"We should get him to the bed," Merlin said. He sounded impatient and his body was hard angles at Arthur's back, making him slightly nervous for the first time since they'd started.

"Are you going to fuck me?" Arthur asked, not quite sure anymore why he'd always thought that was such a bad idea.

"No," Merlin said, laughing softly, "not like this."

"I am," said Gwen. "Right here and just like this will be just fine."

She knelt in front of him but her hands were still up at his breasts. It was just the way he'd always loved to touch her, squeezing a little, letting go and taking hold of him again. She leaned her forehead against his skin for a moment and then her mouth was on that other scar, the one on his hip, that was less than a month old and still tender. When she moved her tongue he remembered Alvarr's sword, but he also remembered Gwen bandaging the wound, Merlin laying a poultice on it, Gwen touching it gingerly in the weeks since then. She'd never pressed this hard, never _bitten_ Arthur's sensitive flesh, and when he cried out his voice was high and light and needy, and Gwen's answer was a low, hungry growl.

"Steady," said Merlin, still solid and tall behind him, holding him up with one hand at his shoulder and the other around his leg.

Arthur didn't feel steady. Not when he knew he had more weight leaning back against Merlin than resting on his own two feet. Not when Gwen let go of his breasts and grabbed him between his thighs. He gasped at how easily her fingers slid into him. They fit just right, like they were meant to be there. And her mouth, _Guinevere's mouth_ closed over him, she sucked and her tongue rubbed rough against him, and there was nothing else, no memory to compare this to, there was just this. Pleasure cut like a knife through to his thighs and he shuddered and collapsed in Merlin's arms.

Merlin couldn't hold him up for very long after that, but he more or less broke the fall, letting Arthur down clumsily but not too hard. "All right, fine, that was good, but at this point I _really_ think we'd be better off moving to the bed."

Merlin was probably right, and come to think of it (Arthur hadn't been thinking much, really) his knee under Arthur's leg and his prick poking at the small of Arthur's back would probably start to get uncomfortable soon, though Gwen could go on gently sucking at the join of his hip and thigh as long as she liked.

But after a few more breaths she pulled away. "Yes, all right," she said. She held her hands out to Arthur and helped pull him up to seated and then standing, and with Merlin's help they made it across the room.

Gwen spread herself out before him, opened her legs and let him push up her skirts. She was wet like he was and she was ready for him. Kissing the inside of her thigh, Arthur thought how lucky he was to have Gwen for a wife and Merlin for a sorcerer and a friend. Without him they wouldn't have this, and without this he never really would have understood. For all that he'd loved her, he never knew until this moment just how good it was to be queen.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [We'll Sink to the Surface and Hold On.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/366284) by [rufflefeather](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rufflefeather/pseuds/rufflefeather)
  * [[Podfic] We'll Slide Down the Surface of Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4792778) by [sophinisba](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophinisba/pseuds/sophinisba)




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